{"id":536326,"date":"2026-01-02T09:15:52","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T09:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crypto-news-flash.com\/?p=1273069"},"modified":"2026-01-02T09:15:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T09:15:52","slug":"near-protocol-outlines-2026-roadmap-focused-on-intents-ai-and-the-next-growth-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e-bitco.in\/index.php\/2026\/01\/02\/near-protocol-outlines-2026-roadmap-focused-on-intents-ai-and-the-next-growth-cycle\/","title":{"rendered":"NEAR Protocol Outlines 2026 Roadmap Focused on Intents, AI, and the Next Growth Cycle"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"eth-editorial-banner\"> <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"eth-editorial-logo\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crypto-news-flash.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/cnf2-scaled-1-1-1.png\" alt=\"Crypto News Flash\"> <span class=\"eth-editorial-text\">All news is rigorously fact-checked and reviewed by leading blockchain experts and seasoned industry insiders.<\/span> <\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>NEAR Protocol sets 2026 priorities around AI-Intents convergence, user-owned AI, and expanding NEAR Intents into a top trading platform.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The protocol hit 1 million TPS, added three shards, and launched AI Cloud tools already serving over 100M users across multiple platforms.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<p><span>NEAR Protocol has published its roadmap for 2026, signaling a shift toward artificial intelligence, decentralized trading, and broader protocol adoption. The Layer 1 blockchain aims to grow NEAR Intents into a leading venue for on-chain transactions, expand its AI efforts, and position $NEAR as a core digital asset in the evolving crypto economy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NEARProtocol\/status\/2006728810427826405\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">announcement<\/a> followed a high-performance year in 2025, which NEAR described as its transition to real-world scale. The protocol reached a major technical benchmark, hitting one million transactions per second (TPS) in a public test using live core code and accessible hardware.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">NEAR\u2019s strategic priorities for 2026:<\/p>\n<p>\u2726 Grow NEAR Intents into top trading venue in crypto<br \/>\u2726 Expand NEAR AI to enable AI-Intents convergence<br \/>\u2726 Position <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%24NEAR&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$NEAR<\/a> at the center of the next growth era<br \/>\u2726 Ensure the AI economy is user-owned<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NEAR Protocol (@NEARProtocol) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NEARProtocol\/status\/2006728810427826405?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">January 1, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>According to NEAR, this proves the viability of sharded blockchain architecture in supporting high-load decentralized applications.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In 2025, NEAR scaled its mainnet infrastructure from six to nine shards, raising throughput by 50%. With dynamic resharding now active, the network can adjust its structure as demand increases. This offers a route to horizontal scalability without disrupting application performance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cSharding lets us scale execution across Intents,\u201d NEAR posted, emphasizing the ability to handle higher transaction volumes. The network\u2019s flexibility is crucial to its broader plans to serve as the base layer for AI and intent-based transactions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>As CNF outlined, NEAR\u2019s infrastructure upgrades come as rival networks like Polygon <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crypto-news-flash.com\/polygon-ceo-highlights-2025-milestones\/\"><span>continue to evolve<\/span><\/a><span> their zkEVM architecture and cross-chain tooling.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>NEAR\u2019s AI Cloud and Privacy-Preserving Tools Go Live<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span>The NEAR Foundation introduced two key products, as <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crypto-news-flash.com\/near-protocol-launches-near-ai-cloud\/\"><span>reported<\/span><\/a><span> by CNF: NEAR AI Cloud and Private Chat, which enhance AI interaction while protecting user data. These tools are designed around the principle of verifiable privacy, meaning user inputs and outputs are cryptographically protected and owned by the user.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Both tools are already integrated into Brave Nightly, OpenMind AGI, and Phala Network applications, reaching over 100 million users. They run on hardware-backed encryption, offering an alternative to centralized AI systems.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>As NEAR stated, \u201cUsers should own their interactions with AI.\u201d The move positions NEAR to support both the privacy and usability demands of decentralized AI products.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Alongside technical progress, NEAR is exploring a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crypto-news-flash.com\/near-protocol-adds-ai-and-humans-to-governance-table\/\"><span>new governance model<\/span><\/a><span> called the \u201cHouse of Stake.\u201d This system will blend community participation with support from intelligent digital agents capable of representing user intent. The protocol claims this structure moves beyond binary voting by enabling more context-aware decision-making.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The 2026 roadmap release and a gradual market upturn in recent days have boosted the NEAR price. In the last 24 hours, the NEAR price was trading over <strong><span>8%<\/span> <\/strong>higher from its intraday low at<\/span><b> $1.63<\/b><span>.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crypto-news-flash.com\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All news is rigorously fact-checked and reviewed by leading blockchain experts and seasoned industry insiders. NEAR Protocol sets 2026 priorities around AI-Intents convergence, user-owned AI, and expanding NEAR Intents into a top trading platform. The protocol hit 1 million TPS, added three shards, and launched AI Cloud tools already serving over 100M users across multiple [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":536327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[4503,2329,25],"class_list":{"0":"post-536326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-other","8":"tag-near","9":"tag-near-protocol","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e-bitco.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e-bitco.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e-bitco.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e-bitco.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e-bitco.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/e-bitco.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e-bitco.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e-bitco.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e-bitco.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e-bitco.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}